Flood damage to electric drivers seat

[tintinmt]

My wife returned to her W209 CLK 280 today to find that it had been flooded. It looked as though the water had been about a foot deep and had flooded the interior.
The obvious damage is to the drivers seat which seems to have maxed itself out on all settings and then burned out at least one motor. Smoke could be seen coming from the seat! None of the fuses have blown but the seat is completely inoperative.
We are leaving it to dry out, but I don't have much hope for the seat.
What to do?
Is there any manual adjustment available in the event of power failure?

 

[richard]

I hate to say this, but you need to talk to your insurance company.

There a load of electronics at that sort of level in the car (seats, stuff in boot under floor, stuff on back of passenger foot-well plate). And if the seat got that wet, the carpets need to come out (they are foam backed and very hard to dry properly) and there will be water in the wiring ducts below - where there are lots of connectors such as CANbus distributors.

This is quite likely to fail over short/medium term :-(

I believe most insurance companies will write it off ...

Richard

 

[tintinmt]

Yes, the dilemma is whether to make a claim or not. Difficult if not impossible to know at the moment versus costs and aggro of claiming. I guess the safe thing is to report to insurance. I think that guarantees loading of premiums in future and any repair is out of our hands.

 

[richard]

Pull up the carpet where the break between front and back section splits near front of front seat and see how wet it is
Cheapest fix to seat is replace with one from a breakers yard!

Properly drying out the car means seats and carpets out, ducts deconstructed and car in an oven overnight. But if the connectors are all wet they will rot and things will fail in time

Do you know exactly how high the water got?

R

 

[tintinmt]

The car is written off with very little investigation. It seems they must have a protocol in these cases. A repair can't be guaranteed so it's off to the salvage company. Amazing really. Fingers crossed that we don't have too much trouble getting adequate value in good time.

 

[richard]

The car is written off with very little investigation. It seems they must have a protocol in these cases. A repair can't be guaranteed so it's off to the salvage company. Amazing really. Fingers crossed that we don't have too much trouble getting adequate value in good time.

Yes, that is as i'd heard. Water over door sills causes write-off because they are just too hard to repair and too likely to fail later.

Go on auto trader and find a similar spec / age car from a trader and use it as an example of the cost of buying similar. Make sure you are comparing similar options and mileage on the cars - the insurance company will probably try ignore them.

Richard

 

[Howard]

Cars damaged by floodwater are generally written off as the water is assumed to be contaminated with sewage of some description.